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Why Power Cables Affect Sound

I just bought a new CD player and was underwhelmed with it compared to my cheaper, lower quality CD player. That’s when it hit me that my cheaper CD player is using an upgraded power cable. When I put an upgraded power cable on my new CD player, the sound was instantly transformed: the treble was tamed, the music was more dynamic and lifelike, and overall more musical. 

This got me thinking as to how in the world a power cable can affect sound. I want to hear all of your ideas. Here’s one of my ideas:

I have heard from many sources that a good power cable is made of multiple gauge conductors from large gauge to small gauge. The electrons in a power cable are like a train with each electron acting as a train car. When a treble note is played, for example, the small gauge wires can react quickly because that “train” has much less mass than a large gauge conductor. If you only had one large gauge conductor, you would need to accelerate a very large train for a small, quick treble note, and this leads to poor dynamics. A similar analogy might be water in a pipe. A small pipe can react much quicker to higher frequencies than a large pipe due to the decreased mass/momentum of the water in the pipe. 

That’s one of my ideas. Now I want to hear your thoughts and have a general discussion of why power cables matter. 

If you don’t think power cables matter at all, please refrain from derailing the conversation with antagonism. There a time and place for that but not in this thread please. 
mkgus
mzkmxcv
777 posts
 
@jea48

I don’t have a subscription to access AES papers, so nothing 100% credible, but here are some measurements of RCA cables. Of course it’s not Nordost Odin 2 or anything that ridicoulous. As for the stereo crosstalk, keep in mind even the worse offender is still well below the signal to be considered inaudible, and the 3” generic cable performed similarly/better than the 3” “expensive” silver one. 
 
EDIT: Wonderful, just notified some of my comments were removed, even though they break none of the guidelines. Love the open discussion.
Post removed 
mzkmxcv
777 posts
 
@elizabth 
 
Changing the waveform’s “speed” is thus changing the frequency of the wave. 
 
Now, even though the US power grid is 60Hz, there is of course some allowed deviation, and there is deviation within our home’s wiring too. Clocks in microwaves, ovens, etc. all use the cycle rate to count time, so if one of your clocks runs faster/slower than the others, it likely means the outlet it’s connected to it constantly putting out less/more cycles (or the clock inside the equipment is just faulty). 
 
But no, changing power cords won’t make a 1kHz note suddenly become a 1200Hz one.
nonoise's avatar
nonoise
11,226 posts
 
@elizabeth ,

As I've already mentioned, you're speaking to an AI program.
Just don't ask it: Hey buddy, what died in there, a cat?
😄

All the best,
Nonoise
Post removed 
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